An undocumented Mexican immigrant returned this weekend to the Chicago church where she once famously lived for a year seeking refuge from federal authorities. Elvira Arellano, deported in 2007, re-crossed the border last week near San Diego to protest U.S. immigration laws, specifically ones she says often keeps families living in two different countries. Arellano, with her 5-month- and 15-year-old sons, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials upon entering the country. After a brief detention, Arellano and her baby were released on supervision and await a September hearing where she can plead her case for asylum, said...

MEXICO CITY - Mention Arizona and many Mexicans grimace. It's still widely viewed here as the most anti-Mexico state in the U.S., even if the tough anti-migrant law behind that perception has been largely voided. But Arizona's leaders are logging lots of miles to put a new face on their home state.

Mexican who gunned down Houston cop WILL be executed tonight despite last-minute pleas from Mexico government A Mexican held on death-row in a Texan prison for murdering a policeman will be executed tonight despite last-ditch appeals from lawyers for clemency. Edgar Arias Tamayo, 46, was set for lethal injection this evening for shooting of Guy Gaddis, 24, in January 1994. The case has been a focus of protests in his home town and diplomatic pressure, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry calling for a delay to Tamayo's execution. Tamayo's lawyers had lodged an appeal arguing that he was ineligible...

At the Pima County morgue in Tucson, Ariz., anthropologist Robin Reineke was going through the personal effects of the hundreds of unnamed migrants who try to cross the border between the United States and Mexico each year but instead wind up here among the dead. Reineke co-founded and is the executive director of the Colibri Center for Human Rights, which helps families of border crossers find missing loved ones. It's "important for us to think about the human cost of our border today, the human cost of immigrations," she said.Reineke keeps a locker room filled with personal effects found with...

Authorities in Eagle Pass shut down the two international bridges there Tuesday night after shootouts in its sister city of Piedras Negras. One female police officer was killed and six people were wounded during the fighting, and prosecutors in the border state of Coahuila said a wounded officer is in serious condition. Traffic to Mexico was shut down on both bridges about 9 p.m., according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Traffic from Mexico at the city's larger bridge, the Camino Real International, was rerouted overnight to the Eagle Pass International Bridge. Both resumed normal operation Wednesday at 7:40 a.m.,...

GREENSBORO, N.C. —Maria Perez’s fate isn’t clear right now. The mother of three young girls has lived in the Alamance County for the past decade. She’s often known as provider. Perez also takes care of her elderly father who suffers from glaucoma. Perez is set to be deported back to Mexico on December 27th ripping her away from the family that loves her so much. Perez turned to the North Carolina Dream Team for help

Cananea, Mexico (CNN) -- In a remote town in northern Mexico, a 10-year-old-boy is struggling with his homework. His name is Oscar Castellanos, and the fifth-grader is getting extra help from his father because he's having trouble adjusting to his new school. The student enrolled at Leona Vicario Elementary in the town of Cananea is technically a foreigner in his father's land. Oscar was born in Arizona and is a U.S. citizen. He recites the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance by memory without hesitation. His English accent is that of a boy raised in the American Southwest. Oscar's family moved back...

A 39-year-old Mexican national who has lived illegally in Pierce County for more than half of his life will be able to stay in the United States through the end of next year – and possibly longer. Oscar Campos Estrada’s chances for staying in this country permanently took a major step forward when a federal immigration judge recently set his next court date for December 2013. “He’s a long way from being deported,” Amy Kratz, a Seattle-based immigration lawyer, said Friday of Oscar’s case. That’s because come May 7 – more than seven months before Oscar’s next court date –...

An illegal immigrant from Mexico charged with multiple counts of rape in Oakland County was tracked down by immigration officials and turned over to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office earlier this week. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) tracked down Miguel Angel Davila-Ruiz, 33, at a southwest Detroit home, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Davila-Ruiz was wanted by the Sheriff’s Office regarding four counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor in Pontiac. Deputies had been looking for Davila-Ruiz since July, when the warrant was issued. Efforts began between ERO and sheriff’s deputies to catch...

Less than a third of a gram of "concentrated marijuana" might get Juan Carlos Rivera deported. The 24-year-old undocumented Mexican immigrant has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Sacramento County jail for more than four months while he awaits a decision in his deportation case.

Remittances from Mexicans living abroad climbed 7.8 percent in May compared with the same month in 2011, the central bank said Monday. Last month’s total was $2.34 billion, above the $2.17 billion registered in May 2011. In May, there were 7,096 transactions, 3.97 percent more than in May 2011, when there were 6,825. Mexico’s central bank said that in May the amount of the remittances received increased by 15.32 percent over April, when $2.03 billion had been received. The average size of the cash transfers to Mexico was $329.21, 3.7 percent larger than the $317.38 that was sent in each...

Radio giant Rush Limbaugh is coming down hard on the Obama administration’s “Fast and Furious” operation today, calling it “liberalism on parade” in a misguided attempt to promote stricter gun control in America. “The whole point of Fast and Furious was to create mayhem in Mexico among drug cartels with American-made weapons easily procured so that you and I would stand up in outrage and demand tighter gun laws,” Limbaugh said “It was deceitful. It was sneaky. It was going against the will of the American people. It was liberalism on parade. It’s who these people are. They want tighter...

Progreso Police said they are closer to busting a carjacking ring targeting owners of extended cab trucks along the border, then taking them into Mexico. On Thursday night, officers arrested Efrain Villareal after he stole a Ford F150 from a 54-year-old woman outside the Family Dollar in Progreso. "The lady, she didn't believe what has happening so he told her,” Sgt. Stephen Trejo said. “Give me keys or I'm going to kill you, in Spanish, and then when she saw the weapon, she gave him the keys and she ran inside and called 9-1-1." Villareal took off to Nuevo Progreso,...

WESLACO - Border Patrol officials say the Rio Grande Valley is seeing an increase in stash houses used for human smuggling. After a human smuggling operation was busted in Weslaco this week, the police chief in says that bust is uncommon for his city. Border Patrol assisted taking more than 50 illegals into custody. Border Patrol spokesperson Rosie Huey says there is no way to find out if this is a bigger problem in some areas compared to others. She says according to Border Patrol's database, it's clear human smugglers are operating all over the Valley. Huey also says according...

A Texas congressman wants to know why the former treasurer of a Mexican border state who's under indictment in that country — and has connections to San Antonio — was granted a visa and was released after his arrest this month in Texas. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, said he asked the State Department why Hector Javier Villarreal, the former head of the tax office for Coahuila who's facing fraud-related charges, was allowed to enter the United States. Villarreal was granted a visa in October, Gohmert said, shortly after Mexican officials released him on bail. Gohmert said he also wants to...

FLORENCE, Ariz. - An officer-involved shooting may have involved as many as seven illegal immigrants. The shooting occurred just outside of Florence, near the Hunt Highway and Felix. That’s about 60 miles southeast of the valley. An officer with the Florence Police Department attempted to pull over a black pickup truck that stuck out to that officer for a couple of reasons. No. 1 -- this happened early in the morning, so there weren't many vehicles out on the road, and No. 2 -- the officer says the truck appeared to be having some mechanical problems. Just before 7 a.m.,...

American Ethnic Studies and Leadership Studies will be teaming up for a new intersession course beginning in summer 2012. The course will involve cultural awareness and service learning projects involving Latino migrant workers in the American southwest. The idea for this course began with Jonathan Berhow, academic counselor for the Academic Assistance Center. Berhow said he had wanted to start a course like this for some time to raise awareness and dispel myths about migrant workers from Mexico and other countries who come to the United States for work. Migrant workers take many risks in coming to the U.S. for...

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., is wondering just when Attorney General Eric Holder will get around to answering his questions about the prosecution of a U.S. Border Patrol agent for "improperly restraining a 15-year-old drug smuggler." At least, that's the question he asked in a new letter today to Holder addressing the dispute over the prosecution of Agent Jesus E. Diaz Jr. for lifting the smuggler's arms to force him to comply with orders when he was arrested. "I am still awaiting your response as to why the Justice Department would actively pursue such a case against a U.S. Border...

WASHINGTON -- A group of Mexican senators announced Tuesday they are preparing to meet with state legislators in Georgia and four other states next month, hoping to head off more stringent immigration laws like the one Georgia enacted this year.The senators plan to share information with state lawmakers that shows illegal immigrants generally stay out of trouble and contribute to the economy while they are here. Sen. Carlos Jimenez Macias, a member of the Mexican Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, confirmed those plans Tuesday at a workshop on immigration reform in D.C. at the German Marshall Fund, a nonpartisan public policy...

(CNN) -- The family of an illegal immigrant paralyzed in a workplace accident says hospital officials have eased their pressure to send him back to Mexico because he is unable to pay for his care. Francisco Martinez broke his neck in a fall from the roof of a shrimp packing business in Galveston, Texas, in August. "He thought he was going to die" said Brandi Cullen Valderrama, Martinez's common-law wife. "He could not even breathe." Martinez was taken to the University Of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where he received life-saving treatment but remains paralyzed from the chest down. Cullen...

A U.S. Border Patrol agent has been sentenced to two years in prison for improperly lifting the arms of a suspected 15-year-old drug smuggler while handcuffed — in what the Justice Department called a deprivation of the teenager’s constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force. Agent Jesus E. Diaz Jr. was named in a November 2009 federal grand jury indictment with deprivation of rights under color of law during an October 2008 arrest near the Rio Grande River in Eagle Pass, Texas, where he and other agents had responded to a report that illegal immigrants had...

GALVESTON - Francisco Martinez wasn't happy about the free trip back to Mexico offered to him by a social worker at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Martinez, 37, of Bacliff, broke his back Aug. 17 after falling off a ladder while working on the roof of a bait shop where he was employed. UTMB doctors saved his life, but he is paralyzed from the chest down, can barely move his hands and needs special care.

AUSTIN – The Texas Department of Public Safety is warning parents about drug cartels recruiting Texas high school students. DPS officials say they caught a 12-year-old boy driving a stolen pickup truck containing more than 800 pounds of marijuana last week. Last month, two Texas teenagers were lured to Mexico where they were kidnapped, beaten, ransomed and released in a remote area along the Rio Grande River. In one Texas border county, more than 25 juveniles were arrested for drug trafficking within the past year. “Mexican cartels have corrupted nearly an entire generation of youth living in Northern Mexico and...

Oct 6 (Reuters) - Mexican trucks will start crossing the U.S. border again in a couple of weeks, reducing transportation costs between the two neighbors by some 15 percent, Mexico's Economy Minister Bruno Ferrari said. The resolution of the long-standing cross-border trucking dispute should give an additional boost to Mexican manufacturers, who have been fighting to increase their market share in the United States. "If you take into consideration that Mexico's manufacturing costs are at least 25 percent lower than in the U.S., this is going to be a very strong competitive advantage," Ferrari told Reuters in an interview late...

LA ROSITA - The search has been called off for Mexican gunmen who fled into the U.S. following a shootout with the Mexican military. It happened near La Rosita in Starr County around 4:00 p.m. Thursday. The Starr County Sheriff's Department, Texas Department of Public Safety, U.S. Border Patrol, and the Texas Rangers all responded to a cornfield six miles west of Rio Grande City following a violent clash between suspected drug cartel members and the Mexican army. At least five armed men crossed into the U.S. during the shootout, but they quickly returned to Mexico to avoid capture.

AGUA PRIETA, Mexico — "My wife, my son — I have to get back to them," Daniel kept telling himself, from the moment he was arrested in Seattle for driving with an expired license, all the way through the deportation proceeding that delivered him to Mexico in June. Nothing would deter him from crossing the border again. He had left his hometown at 24, he said. Twelve years later, he spoke nearly fluent English and had an American son, a wife and three brothers in the United States. "I’ll keep trying," he said, "until I’ll get there." This is increasingly...

A man in the brutal rape of a young girl makes his first court appearance. Alfredo Lopez-Cruz entered the courtroom amid heavy security because of the impact the crime had on the community. For six long years, Lopez-Cruz was Butler County's most wanted man. Today, wearing a bullet proof vest in addition to handcuffs and leg irons, Lopez-Cruz was led into court by the man who tracked him from Hamilton to Mexico for six long years---Butler County Deputy Paul Newton. A translator helped explain the court proceedings to Lopez-Cruz who was given a court-appointed attorney. He is charged with the...

Big-league Mexican drug traffickers imprisoned in the United States are contending that unnecessarily harsh conditions - locked up alone in ultra-high-security confinement - take a physical and psychological toll and may violate U.S.-Mexico extradition treaties.

The Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development and the Utah Department of Public Safety are listed as sponsors of the Mexican Independence Day celebration that was held at the Utah State Fair on September 17. The event featured the Mexican Consul who invited “all the Mexicans in Utah to feel proud of their origins and to keep their culture and traditions, even if they are away from their country.” The Consul’s speech was consistent with the position taken in 2007 by Felipe Calderon, Mexico's current president, who said: "Finally, Mexico does not end at the border. Wherever there is a...

Drip. Drip. Drip. Whether it is Solyndra, Obamacare, or Fast and Furious, President Obama’s push for his “American Jobs Act” has been drowned out this week by the failure of his past policies. Every night it seems there is a new angle on the Energy Department’s failed loan to the bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. Not only was there a headline-grabbing hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday (at which Obama officials tried to blame Bush) , but the Treasury Department separately announced that their Inspector General (IG) would join the FBI and Energy Department IG in their...

A date has been set for the third trial of two men, illegal immigrants from Mexico, charged with murder in the deaths of three young relatives in a Baltimore apartment in 2004. Policarpio Espinoza Perez, 29, and Adan Espinoza Canela, 24, also again pleaded not guilty Thursday. They have been held in custody since their arrests seven years ago, and are now scheduled to be tried again Nov. 10 in Baltimore Circuit Court. The first trial ended in a hung jury, and the second resulted in convictions that were later overturned because of a judge's error. "I take it, since...

NOGALES, AZ - The higher the wall, the harder they will fall. That's what border crossers trying to scale the new border fence at Nogales are painfully finding out.The imposing new border fence running through Nogales is proving to be a treacherous obstacle for suspected illegal immigrantsA Nogales Police Department report says on Aug. 12, a woman broke her leg after climbing the border fence.Two days later, officers found a second injured fence climber. And a third, suspected illegal immigrant from China fell and broke his leg on Aug 22.

A new federal reporting requirement for firearms dealers in four border states, including Texas, intended to curb the flow of weapons into Mexico has prompted a veteran San Antonio gun dealer to file suit against the federal government. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issued a rule last week requiring licensed firearms dealers to report to the agency any time two or more long rifles are sold to the same buyer within a five-day period. The move comes as the ATF continues to deal with the fallout from its controversial "Operation Fast and Furious," an investigation into...

REYNOSA, Mexico — Tom and Yedid Kobylecky now wish they'd stayed silent, quietly living a middle-class life in the suburbs of Chicago and keeping her illegal immigrant status a family secret. But Yedid's parents in Cuernavaca, Mexico, were struggling to keep a taqueria stand going despite her diabetic father's sore-ridden feet and her mother's failing legs. As entrepreneurs, neither qualified for any government medical care. Yedid wired money from cleaning and baby-sitting jobs to help them buy medicines, but longed to be able to travel to see them. And so, four years after meeting at the Home Depot where he...

DONNA — After being processed by U.S. authorities, 33 Mexican soldiers who crossed the international boundary in four military Humvees on Tuesday afternoon were allowed to return to Mexico. U.S. officials who interviewed the soldiers about the incursion on the Donna-Rio Bravo bridge could not divulge a reason for it — other than to say that the soldiers had lost sight of the line and crossed inadvertently. But a source outside of law enforcement and with knowledge of border activity said the soldiers were chasing a South Texas resident who had crossed into Mexico, and although the soldiers did not...

SAN DIEGO — San Diego police expect to finish their investigation this week into the June 21 fatal shooting by a U.S. Border Patrol agent of a Mexican man who was hurling rocks and nail-studded wood during a confrontation along the international border. The report will be forwarded to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego, which will review if the shooting was justified and whether the agent who fired the shots that killed 40-year-old Jose Alfredo Yanez Reyes should face charges. The agent has not been identified and only a broad description of the events surrounding the shooting has...

SAN DIEGO — One of five people charged in the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent admitted Tuesday that the motivation behind the ambush killing was to rob the agent's night vision equipment. Emilio Gonzales pleaded guilty to murder of a federal officer in court and faces life in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 17.

PREMONT (Kiii News) - A man, thought to be an illegal immigrant, is on the loose after reportedly attacking two women at a cemetery in Premont Wednesday night. Police, sheriff's deputies, and border patrol agents never found the man. The women say the man came out of nowhere, claiming to be from Mexico and in need of a ride to Houston. That man reportedly pushed the two women, grabbed one of their car keys, got in their SUV, and then tried to drive off with one of the lady's five month-old baby in the backseat. The women recently recounted to...

WASHINGTON The embattled head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has told congressional investigators that some Mexican drug cartel figures targeted by his agency in a gun-trafficking investigation were paid informants for the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration. Kenneth Melson, the ATF's acting director, has been under pressure to resign after the agency allowed guns to be purchased in the U.S. in hopes they would be traced to cartel leaders. Under the gun-trafficking operation known as Fast and Furious, the ATF lost track of the guns. Many were found at crime scenes in Mexico. Two guns...

Another Border Patrol agent on the southwest border is facing a long prison sentence for doing his job. Isn't it amazing how this happens only on the southwest border and never the Canadian border? Veteran agent Jesus Diaz faces a sentence of five to 25 years in federal prison for "mistreating" an illegal alien who was apprehended crossing the border near Eagle Pass, Texas, in 2008. The man was handcuffed, and allegedly, Diaz lifted his handcuffs to force him to the ground because he was not cooperative. For this "offense" Diaz was prosecuted by U.S. attorney for the West Texas...

WASHINGTON, July 8, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Obama administration's decision to sign an agreement allowing Mexican truckers full access to U.S. roads poses a threat to national security, American motorists, our ability to control illegal immigration, and to the viability of the U.S. trucking industry, charges the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The agreement was signed in Mexico City on Wednesday by Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood without notice from the administration. "Implementation of this provision of NAFTA has been on hold for 17 years with good reason," stated Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "Since President Clinton signed the...

<p>Texas thumbed its nose at the White House and the United Nations on Tuesday as it cleared the way for Thursday's execution of Humberto Leal Garcia Jr., a Mexican national who was denied access to his nation's consulate after being arrested for a San Antonio rape-murder.</p>

While the investigation continues into the U.S. operation that helped send thousands of guns south of the border, Mexican lawmakers say they'll press for extradition and prosecution in Mexico of American officials who authorized and ran the operation. "I obviously feel violated. I feel my country's sovereignty was violated," Mexico Sen. Rene Arce Islas told Fox News. "They should be tried in the United States and the Mexican government should also demand that they also be tried in Mexico since the incidents took place here. There should be trials in both places." Arce is chairman of Mexico's Commission for National...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — A spray-painted sign threatening death for U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents was found Friday next to a school in a northern Mexico state capital, officials said. Addressed with profanity to "Gringos (D.E.A.)," the unsigned graffiti warned: "We know where you are and we know who you are and where you go. We are going to chop off your (expletive) heads."

Reporting from Mexico City— A Roman Catholic priest who has long championed the cause of migrant workers on Monday denounced what he said was another mass kidnapping of undocumented Central Americans purportedly yanked from a train by masked gunmen in southern Mexico. Father Alejandro Solalinde, who runs the Hermanos en el Camino shelter for migrants, said at least 80 people primarily from Guatemala and Honduras were apparently abducted Friday in Veracruz state. He based his claim on information from several members of the group who said they managed to escape.If the report is true, this will be the latest in...

McALLEN — Jurors convicted three men Wednesday for their roles in the sex smuggling of three teenage Mexican girls in Rio Grande City. Jurors deliberated about two hours following the three-day trial, which pegged Juan Antonio Garcia Garay as the ringleader of the operation. The case involved a March 17 traffic stop by Rio Grande City police, who encountered a barefoot 13-year-old girl toting a pistol hidden beneath a purple jumper dress. The girl later told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents she was a prostitute working alongside two others, ages 15 and 18. The three girls had been staying...